Test invented in Brazil can detect whether cheap filler ingredients like
starch syrup and barley have been added to coffee

If you thought your morning brew was just a luscious mix of coffee and water, think again – all around the world, everything from soybeans to starch syrup are being added to coffee

Thought not harmful, these cheap “filler” ingredients increase coffee producers' profits by stretching the treasured coffee beans just that little bit further, and are especially common in areas where problems such as plant disease and drought have damaged coffee production.

The days of “counterfeit coffee” may be numbered however, as a team of scientists in Brazil has developed a simple test which can detect if coffee has been tampered with.

The test, which was created by researchers at the State University of Londrina in Paraná, detects with 95 per cent accuracy any additives by using “liquid chromatography ” – a process which separates the different components and allows them to be chemically analysed.

Suzana Lucy Nixdorf, who led the research, said that after being roasted and ground, it was usually impossible to tell whether coffee had been adulterated.

“With our test, it is now possible to know with 95 per cent accuracy if coffee is pure or has been tampered with, either with corn, barley, wheat, soybeans, rice, beans, acai seed, brown sugar or starch syrup," she said.

Brazil is one of the world's largest producers of coffee, but a serious drought at the start of this year wreaked havoc on its coffee plantations. It has been predicted that the country will only produce 45 million bags of coffee this year, significantly less than the 54 million bags produced in 2013.

The Brazilian team are now analysing impurities like wood, twigs, sticks, husks and clumps of earth that are also sometimes introduced to coffee, though probably accidentally during the harvest process.

The findings are to be presented this week at a meeting of the American Chemical Society.